


The Willow, the Birch, the Brambles, O

by Zdenka



Category: See You When You Get Here - Lisa Mitchell (Song)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Revenge, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4069360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/pseuds/Zdenka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julie goes to her sister's grave and speaks to her. Her sister answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isquinnabel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/gifts).



> Here are the [lyrics](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lisamitchell/seeyouwhenyougethere.html) and [music](https://youtu.be/0pjdT2eXC7Q) for the song this story is based on.
> 
> The story is complete in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 is a sort of appendix with a longer version of Sylvia's ballad.

Julie sits by the shore of the lake, beside the green smooth mound of Sylvia’s grave. The willow branches trail down, tufted with green leaves. There is a stand of birches too, paper-white with dark smudges. The leaves rustle together, and the water splashes softly against the shore. It is a peaceful place. She would like to think death is peaceful. On a whim, she traces letters in the grass: _How does it feel to be dead?_

A faint breeze stirs the grass, no more than that. She rises and goes home. She does all the ordinary things that she does every day, things that she did before her sister was dead: chopping vegetables for stew, cooking, cleaning the pot afterwards and washing the dishes. Folding laundry, sweeping, scrubbing the floors. She does everything she can think of, and then there is nothing left to be done and only a blank expanse of time stretching in front of her. She goes to bed. She can only remember brief images from her dreams: Sylvia drifting in the lake, her long hair spread out like seaweed, and a bloom of red in the water above her chest.

When she wakes up in the morning, there is a note on the table in the kitchen, written in familiar looping handwriting on a scrap of birch bark: _How does it feel to be alive?_

“Lonely,” she says aloud. “It feels lonely.”

The notes continue to arrive over the next few days. One says: _You are alive. Go to the living._ Julie has not been back to town since the funeral. “I don’t need to,” she says. “I’m fine here. I don’t need anyone.”

_It’s all right to be alive. It’s all right. Go to the living._

With the notes urging her on, Julie finally puts on decent clothes and walks into town, to Harry’s store. She has delayed long enough that the customers are gone, old Harry closing up shop. She remembers him at the funeral, red-eyed and twisting his handkerchief between his fingers. “If you need anything,” he said, “you can always come to me and Anna. You know that, don’t you?” And he patted her shoulder awkwardly. He and his wife had been friends with her parents; he knew both her and Sylvia from the time they were babies.

She opens the door, hearing the bells jangle above her, and stands tentatively just inside the doorway.

“Why, Julie,” Harry exclaims. “It’s good to see you. I was just closing up. You’ll come to dinner? Anna will be glad to see you also. And my nephew is in town, you remember him . . .” She lets the words wash over her. But when he locks the door and heads for his house, she lets herself be drawn along in his wake.

Anna greets her warmly and pulls her into an embrace. Julie finds herself blinking tears from her eyes. She is grateful that they don’t ask her any questions or expect her to speak. Indeed, the nephew carries most of the conversation. He is new to the town, and Harry hopes to train him to take over the store. He holds forth on jewelry appraisal and antiques. He laughs often and boasts of finding treasures for almost nothing and selling them to the highest bidder.

Julie helps clear the table and wash up, still without speaking. There is a warmth in her that she had thought extinguished. As she is about to leave she says very quietly, “Thank you.”

When she gets home, a curl of birch bark lies on the table. _Be careful, Julie,_ it says. _Be safe. You have dined with a murderer._

That night, Julie dreams. Sylvia is walking through the woods by the lake, her face turned away. She is barefoot, and water drips from her hem. She sings a ballad as she goes, a familiar old tune; but the words are different.

_A maid was coming home from town;_  
_brown was her hair and green her gown._  
_The willow, the birch, the brambles, O._

_A gentleman was passing by_  
_and this fair maiden did espy._  
_The willow, the birch, the brambles, O._

_He asked her for her gold and gear_  
_and the silk ribbon in her hair._  
_He asked her for her silver ring,_  
_he asked her for one other thing._  
_The willow, the birch, the brambles, O._

_The maid would not do as he said;_  
_he took his knife and stabbed her dead._  
_The willow, the birch, the brambles, O._

_The young man all her gold did take;_  
_he plunged her body in the lake._  
_He kept her ring and all her goods,_  
_and thought him safe there in the woods._  
_The willow, the birch, the brambles, O._

Julie wakes up with the tune running through her mind. Though it is not yet fully light, she slips on her dress, pulls shoes over her bare feet, and hurries down to the lake. A few birds are twittering in the trees, the sound very loud in the stillness. Julie falls to her knees on her sister’s grave. “Sylvia,” she whispers. “Please tell me. What do you want me to do?”

There is a patch of brambles beside the birches; in the summer they will be thick with blackberries, but now they are only dry bare sticks, covered with spines. As she watches, they twist, tracing letters in the ground. _BRING HIM HERE._

It takes perhaps a week before Julie goes to the store at a time she knows Harry’s nephew will be there. She stands outside the door for a long time, gathering her courage. Motion catches her eye; it is a maple seed, spinning down from a tree. She catches it, as she and Sylvia used to do when they were children. “Catch it and make a wish!” she whispers to herself. She opens her hand to look. There is writing on the seed, impossibly fine pen-strokes on the living green surface. _You are,_ it says on one side. She turns it over. _Loved._ Julie tucks it carefully away in her pocket. Then she takes a deep breath and goes in.

it is not so difficult, after all, to persuade him to come to her house. “You seem to know a lot about jewelry,” she says, twisting her skirt nervously between her fingers, “and things like that.”

He gives her an easy smile. “I’ve made a study of them, yes. What would you like to know?”

“My mother had some old necklaces and rings and such, that she inherited from her mother. I’ve always wondered if they were worth anything.”

“Bring them here, and I’d be glad to take a look. I can at least let you know whether it’s worth the trouble of getting them appraised.”

“There are other things too,” she says vaguely. “A little bronze statue and . . . I don’t know. Lots of things, all tucked away in the attic. It might be easier if you could come over. I’d make you dinner, for your trouble.”

His smile broadens, and she wonders if he thinks she is flirting with him. But he says, “Certainly. Tomorrow evening then, after the store closes?”

“My house can be hard to find,” she says. “It’s off in the woods a ways. I’ll meet you and take you there.”

She leads him through the woods toward her cottage. Her left hand is in her pocket, worrying the green maple seed between her fingers. But she doesn’t take him there; instead she turns aside to the lake. They reach the shore, and she stands there, feeling the breeze and watching the willow branches sway back and forth.

He laughs, though there is an uneasy edge to it. “This isn’t your house. Unless you live in the lake?”

Julie points to the low green mound, though she keeps the maple seed tightly in her other hand like a talisman. “My sister is buried here,” she says, her voice shaking. “She was murdered. They never caught the one who did it.”

“A tragic story,” he says, as if he knows nothing. “But why are you showing me her grave?”

“Because you killed her.” She moves forward. He takes a step back, then another, and then he is standing on Sylvia’s grave.

The birch twigs twine and twist, although there is no wind. They slide forward and wrap around his arms, spiraling from wrist to shoulder.

“What is this?” He is trying to seem assured, but his voice cracks. “Is this a joke?”

“No,” she says. “No joke.” The brambles rise up from the ground and twine around his legs. The branches and the brambles, they pull and they tug. They are pulling him toward the lake.

“Help me! Please – help—”

“No,” she says. She stands and watches, until there are no more bubbles rising from the surface of the water. The willow branches sweep once over the soil of the lake shore, erasing his footprints.

From that day on, there are no more messages. She goes every day to Sylvia’s grave and speaks to her, hoping for a response. But the mound under its grassy covering remains silent, and when the birch leaves stir, it is only the wind. She resorts to asking and finally begging for a word, a sign. “Don’t leave me, Sylvia,” she pleads. “You don’t have to leave, just because we caught your murderer. It’s too lonely here without you.”

The moments go by. There is no sound but the lapping of the lake water against the shore. And then the leaves of the birches shiver, and a curl of birch bark drifts slowly down. She reaches up and catches it in her hand.

_Do not hurry,_ the note says. _Do not rush along the path. I will see you when you get here._


	2. The Ballad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the full version of the ballad, which was too long to fit in the story (and I wasn’t sure anyone wanted to read that much ballad verse). Irregularities of rhyme and meter are intentional.

A maid was coming home from town;  
brown was her hair and green her gown.  
At market-day her goods she sold,  
she had her pockets full of gold.  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

A gentleman was passing by  
and this fair maiden did espy.  
He took a sharp knife in his hand,  
he called to her and bade her stand.  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

He asked her for her gold and gear  
and the silk ribbon in her hair.  
He asked her for her silver ring,  
he asked her for one other thing.  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

‘O do not take the silver ring  
my father to my mother did bring.  
O all the gold I carry here  
is to feed and clothe my sister dear.’  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

‘But let me go upon my way,  
and thorns will never do you scathe.  
Take but the ribbon from my hair,   
and you will go safe by field and moor.’  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

‘O I will have the silver ring  
your father to your mother did bring.  
O I will have your gold and gear  
and still go safe by field and moor.’  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

‘My sister waits for me at home;  
how she will weep when this is known.’  
The maid would not do as he said;  
he took his knife and stabbed her dead.  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.

The young man all her gold did take;  
he plunged her body in the lake.  
He kept her ring and all her goods,  
and thought him safe there in the woods.  
The willow, the birch, the brambles, O.


End file.
